Our Birth Story

So... I have been meaning to write this all down, but my free time has been a little limited as of late.

Nicholas Clifton Stewart was born on July 26, 2006. The following is an abridged version of our birth story:

Scheduled to be induced on Wednesday the 26th, I went in to see my doctor on Tuesday the 25th. I was very dialated and effaced, and I was instructed to be at the hospital before 7 the next morning. Wouldn't you know, I started having contractions almost immediately after returning home from seeing my doctor.

My contractions weren't painful at all, but they were regular. Every 6 minutes, like clockwork, for 4 hours, until I decided to call my doctor. Upon her recommendation, we went to the hospital to make sure I would be able to get my epidural. I would need to get IV fluids and have labs drawn before I could have this epidural, so we needed to go ahead and get on the move.

We arrived in Triage, where we had to face the Triage Bouncer, a lady who was quite overwhelmed by the masses of pregnant women there attrmpting to give birth. There were certainly more people there begging admittance than there were rooms to accomodate them. The ladies on either side of us, I'm afraid, were both sent home. (This night was not only a new moon, but also a little more than 9 months after Hurricane Wilma.)We were green lighted and given a room rather promptly, and we soon received nice nurses.

I was immediately given an IV and hooked up to many monitoring devices, and I was told that I could have nothing to drink, something that was simply horrifying to me. I was so so so thirsty! Our nice nurses made us very comfortable, but my contractions began to suddenly get much, much more intense. By 1 a.m., I was asking for my epidutal. It was then that I learned that the only anesthesiologist there was performing 5 C-sections that night, and I would have to wait my turn. On top of that, the noise that I kept hearing outside our window was not the lawnmower that I envisioned, but the trauma helicopter delivering people who also needed the asesthesiologist's attention.

So by 1 or 1:30, without my beloved epidural, I asked for the drugs. Please give me drugs. I was given Nubain, which made me feel like my tongue was bigger than the space that my mouth had to offer. I now had to focus all of my attention on simply swallowing. I could still feel my contractions, but I just didn't care so much about them. This was fine, but it kind of started to wear off by 3:30. Thankfully, that was when my saint of an anesthesiologist arrived.
A small break in his schedule allowed him to administer my epidural. Had the next trauma arrived five minutes sooner, I probably would have had to go until after 8 a.m. without it. For some reason, John was asked to leave the room, but he came back around 4:30, when I was extremely, extremely happy. I couldn't feel a thing. But thirst. My wonderful JohnStewart fed me ice chips almost all night long. When he wasn't doing that, he was attempting to sleep on this little foldout chair contraption. He was awakened probably every thirty or so minutes, between my nurse Julie and our doctor coming in to check on my progress.

Sadly, the drugs and the epidural slowed down my labor. By 6 a.m. I was only dialated to 6 cm. We decided to wait for the next doctor's shift to begin at 8, at which time she would break my water.

So that's what we did. Dr. Cook and my new nurse, Erin, broke my water, but I still resisted dialating further. John and I slept all morning. By 11, they decided to place the baby's monitor on his head. When they secured the monitor to his scalp, he moved, and the rest of my water -- and I mean THE REST OF MY WATER -- came out. Now things really got moving.
I needed my epidural refreshed around noon. The damn thing had stopped working as effectively, and I could now feel my contractions all along my left side, wrapping around to my back. That was NOT pleasant. I don't understand why anyone would want to feel that if they didn't have to. After receiving my epidural refill, I was once again as happy as a clam, but still very thirsty. I was checked again around 1 p.m., and I had dialated from 6 to 9.5 since 11. By 1:30, we were fully dialated, and Dr. Cook asked me if I would like to push.

Yikes.

I remember the lights in the room being very dim, and we got down to work. I pushed for about 25 minutes. I was able to feel the beginning of the contractions, so I knew when to begin to push, but I didn't know when to stop. I'm not a very good breather, so the hardest part for me was being able to push for the entire count of 10. (Three pushes during the contraction, each push lasting through the count of 10.) I received kind words of encouragement from my team, which consisted of JohnStewart, Dr. Cook, and our nurse Erin. Only about 10 or so pushes were necessary, because we were graced with the presence of Nicholas Clifton Stewart at 1:58.

He was placed on my chest while they cleaned him up, and I was just amazed by how warm he was. I guess that made perfect sense, since he was inside me, a snugly 98.6 degrees. His head was just a little pointed, but it looked good. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 3 oz., and he was 21 inches long. And he was absolutely beautiful.

My birth went exactly as wonderfully and perfectly as I ever could have planned. I would do it again in a minute. The nurses at St. Mary's Hospital were fabulous. We couldn't have asked for anything more.

Several hours later, we were transferred to our new room in another area of the hospital. On our way, we passed women on gurneys out in the hall in labor, since there were still not enough rooms to accomodate everyone. We passed them and a Maternity Class Hospital Tour, carrying our new bundle of joy, on our way to our new room.

The lady who "teaches" the Maternity Class, the "Birth Nazi," remarked as we passed her that she remembered us from a recent tour. I'm sure she did remember us, since we were JUST there!! She wouldn't let us take the class until like the end of May, and I had been trying to schedule it since early March.